


Tony Nese Has Abs

by storyranger



Series: Cruising for a Bruising [1]
Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Body Image, Coming Out, First Kiss, M/M, One Shot, Post-Betrayal, Weight Issues, content warning: mentions of rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 04:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13629042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyranger/pseuds/storyranger
Summary: A fic about body image, weight, new managers, and true love.





	Tony Nese Has Abs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heelnev](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heelnev/gifts).



> One time my partner said to me "Tony Nese is the fat kid who woke up from puberty with muscles and hasn't fully processed it yet" and I think about that every day. Set immediately after the Feb 6/18 episode of 205Live.
> 
> [If you're still on the Enzo Amore train, this may not be the fic for you.]

_“Congratulations, Tony, you have abs!”_

Drake Maverick’s words echo in Tony’s head, over and over, building to a crescendo that turns into sheer white noise, blocking out everything else. By the time Drake Maverick announces he and Gulak are against each other in the first round of the championship tournament, Tony’s mind has gone completely blank.

Drew Gulak’s is a little fuller.

 _Fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck in the name of all that is sacred why the fuck is this happening to me?_ G-d was clearly testing him. How else could you explain them getting pitted against each other now? They’d scarcely had a chance to begin rebuilding after-

 _After you destroyed everything,_ his conscience reminded him, meanly.

Not that he deserved kindness, after what he’d done.

Drew Gulak, who regarded himself as the pinnacle of upstanding moral fibre, who prided himself on his commitment to elevating the cruiserweight division, had backed that piece of shit rapist. He’d supported that clown in the hopes he could eventually further his own agenda. And worst of all, when push came to shove, he’d picked that scumbag over Tony.

Tony, who had supported Drew since day one. Who had stayed with him late at the performance centre every time he lost and needed to punish himself with an extra workout. Who would edit his PowerPoints at all hours of the night because he knew what a perfectionist Drew was. Who would take his phone and go through his mentions whenever a post came out that mentioned Drew being Jewish and deleted anything egregiously anti-Semitic before he had to see it.

The moment had come for Drew to stand by Tony for once, and instead he’d kicked him in the face. He’d thought in that moment that nothing would ever hurt as bad as this did. Then he saw the look on Tony’s face. Not anger, or hatred, or surprise. Just … _resignation_. Like he’d already accepted long ago that Drew would put himself first in the end. And that hurt a thousand times worse. It had cracked him open and left him a raw shell of himself.

And of course, it was Tony who’d started to knit him back together. Who noticed he’d stopped sleeping. Who found him in their hotel’s gym at 3am a month later and just wordlessly hit the stop button on the treadmill, hugged him until the tears came and went and he finally fell asleep in Tony’s bed. In the morning they’d talked things out more coherently; he’d begged for forgiveness, and Tony had given it immediately.

He’d been on the tour bus when the news broke on Twitter about what that _paskudnyak_ had done. Jack Gallagher was sitting behind him and had shoved his phone in Drew’s face, smirking. “Looks like you lads backed the wrong horse.”

Drew’s face had burned all the way to the arena, until Nia had come over to them, shaking, and Tony suggested they craft the ultimate subtweet. Even as they took the picture his smile felt hollow, the shame of what he’d done and who he’d done it for hitting him over and over again. It wasn’t until they were alone in their hotel room that night, with him buried under several blankets and Tony in the bathroom trimming his beard, that he managed to say anything at all.

“I was on that Zo-Train right next to you,” Tony had pointed out gently. “You couldn’t have seen this coming.”

But he should have, and he didn’t, and sometimes he thought that would haunt him forever. How the fuck Tony had managed to forgive him so easily would never make sense to him, and like most things he didn’t understand, it terrified him.

Now Maverick was going to ruin everything again.

 _You ruined it first,_ his conscience chimes in, and he has to take a minute to steady himself against the doorframe before he can walk into the locker room. He feels like he’s going to puke.

 

Tony’s sitting on a bench, motionless.

“Nese?”

He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t even hear him. Just stares at the wall in front of him like it’s a painting in the MOMA.

“Nese. NESE.”

No response. Drew crosses the room, sits on the bench next to him, and puts a hand on his shoulder. Tony starts at Drew’s touch, standing up and whirling around into a defensive stance.

“It’s okay, Tony. It’s just me.” Drew puts his hands up, trying to look as non-threatening as possible.

Tony nods, and slowly sits back down. He starts gnawing at his thumbnail, and out of habit Drew reaches over to bat Tony’s hand away from his mouth.

“Do you think I’m fat?” Tony suddenly blurts out.

“What?” Drew asks, startled.

“I mean, with a shirt on, do I look like someone that you’d be surprised to find out has an eight-pack?”

“No!” Drew’s even more bewildered now.

“Do people think abs like this just appear out of nowhere? Because they don’t.”

“Tony, who the fuck would think that?”

“I worked hard for these. All of these. And I still work hard, every day. Do you know how much I fucking miss Doritos and garlic bread? Spaghetti with the good Bolognese sauce? Lucky Charms?”

“Tony, where is this coming from?”

“ _Congratulations, Tony, you have abs!_ ” Tony spits back, mimicking the GM’s accent perfectly. “Like he thinks losing weight is as easy as cutting your hair. Like nothing I’ve done here fucking matters. You know what? Maybe he’s right. I’ve been here almost two years and I’ve never even been close to the title picture. I’m a cruiserweight who can’t even do a goddamn senton bomb. I can’t run from fate forever. Sooner or later I’ll slow down and gain it all back. And then what’ll I be? Just a fat loser. Not that far off from what I am right now.”

“Senton bombs are for idiots who take unnecessary risks,” Drew counters quietly. “And you’re not an idiot.”

“Yes I am.”

Drew can feel his heart is splintering into a thousand pieces as he listens to his best friend tear himself down like this. He knew Tony’s weight was a big deal to him. More than once he’s caught Tony skipping meals on weigh-in day, has forced a protein bar into him the second he got off the scale so he wouldn’t have a headache during his match. But he’s never come close to understanding just how closely Tony’s self-esteem was tied up with his body image.

“No, you’re not. _I’m_ the idiot here. I’m so sorry, Tony. All this time you’ve been looking out for me and I had no idea how much you were struggling. I’ve been such a selfish idiot. I don’t even know why you forgave me; I haven’t done a fucking thing to earn it.”

“You said sorry.”

“Sorry’s not good enough for scum like me.”

“Don’t say that, Drew,” Tony whispers. “Please don’t say things like that.”

“How could I not notice?”

“Because I didn’t want you to. Men aren’t supposed to care about shit like this.”

“When have I ever given a _fuck_ what men were supposed to do? I’ve cosplayed Sasha Banks on camera, false lashes and all. Did you think I’d judge you if you told me?”

“I…” Tony trails off, flushing, and Drew remembers that he lost the moral high ground weeks ago.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… fuck. I’m making this about me.”

“I didn’t know how you’d react. I didn’t know if you’d laugh at me or get mad or freak out and worry, and I didn’t even know which reaction I wanted.”

“Do you know now?” Drew asks, shifting the slightest bit closer to him. Tony responds by grabbing his hand, beginning to trace patterns over the back of it while he thinks.

“Is there one where you don’t flay yourself over this?” he finally murmurs.

Drew decides to go for honesty. “I’m not sure. I still kinda hate myself right now.”

“I guess that makes two of us.”

Drew wraps his arm around Tony, squeezing him tight. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Tony,” he whispers. “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. I wish I could find some way to be worthy of you.”

“You don’t need… I don’t want to fight you,” Tony whispers back, flipping Drew’s hand over and beginning to trace the lines of his palm with a gentle finger.

“I’ll talk to Maverick. Tell him he has to call off the match. Or I’ll just forfeit.”

“I didn’t mean in the ring. I meant arguing with you. I hate it.”

“Oh.”

“What do I need to do to make you believe that we’re okay?”

“Nothing!”

“ ** _Bullshit_**.”

“Tony, why are you trying to make me feel better about this? _I’m_ the one who kicked _your_ head in!”

Tony stares at him for a moment, frustrated.

Then he grabs Drew’s face with both hands and kisses him.

It’s over before Drew can process that it’s happening. Tony shifts back to his side of the bench, bites his lip, takes a deep breath.

“Because I love you, dummy.”

Drew’s not gonna lie to himself and say he hasn’t daydreamed once or twice about those exact words spilling out of his best friend’s mouth. Maybe not followed by “dummy,” but hey, he deserves that. Now that it’s happened, though, he has no idea how to handle it.

Tony, already vulnerable, mistakes his speechlessness for disgust.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…  I just thought… I mean it seemed… I’m going to leave now.”

“ _Wait._ ” Drew rasps, desperate, grabbing Tony’s wrist and tugging him back.

“I shouldn’t have assumed-”

“It’s fine.”

“I don’t just kiss people like that without asking, that’s not who I am-”

“Tony. _It’s fine_.”

“I understand, if you want me to get a separate room or something. I swear I haven’t been looking at your junk or anything. I didn’t even know I liked guys before I met you. Am I gay now? Does kissing a boy make you gay, or do you have to kiss more than one-”

“ _Tony_.”

Tony finally meets his gaze, and now that he has his attention, Drew’s keenly aware of how easily he can fuck things up in the next few sentences.

“No one else can decide if you’re gay. I don’t want you to get a separate room. I…” he trails off. He wants to say it back, but he’s not sure he can prove it.

So he just kisses him.

Their second kiss lasts much longer than the first. It’s more passionate, too; now that both parties are aware of what’s going on, they can work around each other, can properly explore this new dimension to their relationship. There’s a third, and a fourth, and by the time they reach the hotel and Tony pushes him down onto the bed they’ve lost count. There’s no room in his brain to count as he frantically tries to memorize every plane of Tony’s body, mapping the sweet spots like he’ll never get another chance. By the time they jump in the shower, exhausted and giddy, to clean off the mess he’s made on all eight of Tony’s perfect abs, they’ve both forgotten Drake Maverick even exists.

 

They can’t forget forever, of course. Next Tuesday will come and only one of them can move on in the tournament. With luck they’ll make it all the way to the final, will raise the title over their head before bringing it home to claim a hero’s welcome. Drew believes they can survive that long, at least.

Maybe one day he will forgive himself enough to say “I love you”. But until he finds words, Drew Gulak has his actions.

To Tony Nese, they’re louder than any words ever could be.

**Author's Note:**

> The main roster was bumming me out a bit, so I decided to try my hand at a new pairing. Hope I did these two idiots justice.


End file.
